Intelligent Robots in Business Processes: A Students’ Perspective

Abstract

AbstractThe fourth industrial revolution urges companies to incorporate technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics in their business processes. The success of emerging technologies to innovate business processes, however, largely depends on the acceptance by employees, e.g., as being the end users for human-robot collaboration. The current paper addresses a yet under investigated technology, namely robotics with more advanced levels of intelligence. The existing literature about intelligent robots is still scarce and mainly limited to applications in particular sectors. Since intelligent robot applications will increase in the medium term, our purpose is to add an interdisciplinary perspective by examining the degree to which acceptance differs among master students as highly-skilled future employees. Our survey shows that gender and academic discipline only have a limited impact to predict the acceptance of intelligent robots at work, but different adoption profiles seem to matter most for robotic process changes. Finally, we discuss the role of students, universities and employees to better prepare for the future digitalization of the workplace.KeywordsIntelligent robotsAcceptanceStudentsFuture employees